These are some of the threats to global peace. And science and technology can help ease these threats.

That will be one message of a panel of scientists from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory at the Oak Ridge Peace Forum organized and hosted by Rotary International District 6780.

The Peace Forum will be held on Saturday, March 9, from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Pollard Technology Conference Center on the Oak Ridge Associated Universities campus. The conference hotel is the DoubleTree on South Illinois Avenue.

Non-Rotarians, as well as Rotarians, are encouraged to attend. The early registration deadline is today (Friday). The cost is $50, which includes a box lunch and drink. To register, visit rotaryor.org/peaceforum.html or call Jennifer Pettyjohn at (865) 483-8431.

The keynote speaker at the Peace Forum will be Rotary International President Sakuji Tanaka of Japan, who will speak on "Peace through Service," his motto as Rotary International president for his one-year term. He is the third sitting Rotary International president to visit Oak Ridge in the 108-year history of Rotary International.

Jim Roberto, head of the Partnerships directorate and acting deputy director for science and technology at ORNL, will be the moderator of the "Peace through Science and Technology" panel.

The panelists, all from ORNL, will be Budhendra Bhaduri, leader of the Geographic Information Science and Technology group in the Computing and Computational Sciences directorate; Gene Ice, director of the Materials Science and Technology Division; Alan Icenhour, director of the Global Nuclear Security Technology Division, and Rekha Pillai, manager of ORNL's International Science and Technology Program.

Bhaduri will speak on ways that technology can help humans provide disaster relief and adapt to climate change. Ice will address the uses of technology for helping countries meet their needs for clean water and safe energy supplies.

Icenhour will speak on ORNL's role in supporting nuclear nonproliferation — preventing the spread of weapons-grade nuclear materials to outlaw nations and terrorist groups.

Pillai will present ways that technology could be applied to reduce various global threats to peace.

In the afternoon, a second panel will address "Peace through Human Understanding." Karen Wentz, past district governor of District 6780, will be the moderator.

Panelists will be Dick Bowers, former U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia, past Rotary district governor and retired member of the U.S. diplomatic corps; Jake Morrill, minister at the Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church, and Allison Kwesell, a Rotary World Peace Fellow at the International Christian University in Tokyo and a documentary photojournalist who has worked in Chattanooga and all over the world.

Ambassador Bowers will provide a summary of the panel discussions and lunch table discussions. Each table will have a discussion leader who is knowledgeable on the table topic.

Fred Heitman, chair of the Peace Forum organizing committee and past president of the Oak Ridge club, said that he believes every attendee will take away some innovative ideas on how to bring peace to the community and world.